Greetings, good readers. Many of you will recall that at some point in our planet's history, I took a good hard look at a silence oriented offering from Thermaltake, the Toughpower QFan 650W. Today, I'm following up on that review by examining the little brother of that unit, the W0151RU. This unit is based on the same platform as big brother was, so things should turn out very well for our QFan Junior here. But, as always, I'm going to run it through the meat grinder that is our SunMoon load tester and see if we end up with grade A beef or mystery meat.

Starting things off, as usual, is a sequence of cardboard shots. Above, you can see the features claimed for this unit by Thermaltake. There are some cool things up there, like a claim that the unit is rated at 50 degrees, but for the most part these features are exactly the same as 650W big brother with only minor differences; like this one having triple 12V distribution as opposed to quad.

There's one very cool thing the box doesn't tell you in this shot - the unit is certified bronze by the good people at the 80 Plus initiative, which means it hit at least 82% in their tests.

Oh good, I'm glad they told me. I was going to use it as a mace.

Elsewhere on the "this is a power supply" side of the box appears these two fancy diagrams showcasing some of the cool features and connector counts. Hmm... no 8 pin PCI-E connectors, eh? Mayhap Thermaltake should consider adding one... even though this unit is really not powerful enough to run some of those cards with a lot of room to spare, it should still be able to handle a single high powered video card at this power level.

Opening the box reveals a familiar sight to those who read my 650W Qfan review, as 500W little brother comes with everything that model did: a fancy silencing gasket used for mounting the unit to one's case, a manual, some screws, and a little green Key 3 Spirit, info sheet, power cord, modular cable bag, and a power supply. Here, I'll even show you:

As you can see, the 500W model is the same off-brown color as big brother is. Not the most attractive color I've seen on a computer SMPS, I must say. It sure makes that white frameless fan stand out though. Speaking of that fan, you'll observe several horizontal slits in the casing. These are additional air intakes for that fan. This should make it a bit quieter when bringing the wind at full bore. Or is that full boar? Either way, we'll see if the unit turns out to be fully boring in the hot box, won't we?

Another view of the unit showing the modular connectors and the sleeving that does not go all the way inside the box, unfortunately. Oh, look... a warranty sticker. You know what those do to me, right? Correct. It's like waving a red flag at a bull, money at a banker, and chocolate at my sisters. That is, it must be responded to as quickly as possible. But before I go voiding that warranty, here's a label and table.

Thermaltake
W0151RU

+3.3V

+5V

+12V1

+12V2

+12V3

-12V

+5VSB

30A

28A

18A

18A

16A

0.8A

3A

Max Power

140W

432W

9.6W

15W

500W

Not bad specs here for a 500W unit, I must say. 36A combined for the 12V rails.

Here's a good close-up of the modular panel. The four black six pin connectors are for the SATA and Molex chains, the two red ones are for the PCI-E cables, and the 8 pin black one is for the EPS12V/ATX12V cable. Be warned - the red and black six pin connectors are pin compatible - don't mix them up, because they are not electrically compatible. Speaking of the modular cables, here they are:

Type of connector:

Thermaltake
W0151RU

ATX connector (480mm)

20+4 pin

12V3

Modular Cables

8-pin Xeon/EPS connector (480mm)

1

12V1

2 x 2 ATX12V connectors (+150mm)

1

2 x 3 PCIe (495mm)

2

12V2

5.25" Drive connectors (490mm+150mm+150mm+150mm)

7

12V4

3.5" Drive connectors (+150mm)

2

SATA (490mm+150mm+150mm)

6

Unit Dimensions(L x W x H)

150mm x 160mm x 86mm

You might be saying to yourself right about now, "I could have sworn that lunatic said this thing was a triple 12V design." Well... turns out it isn't. I opened it up to verify the rail assignments, and like most other units I've seen based on this platform, it's really quad 12V. Worry not... on a unit this anemic, you'll likely never hit the overcurrent limits on any of the individual 12V rails before reaching the general OCP limit for the whole unit. So, this is a non-issue to me.